RENTON — Demolition of the parking garage at the Renton IKEA store began Thursday morning to make way for a new, larger store.
A pair of excavators began tearing down the 365,000-square-foot structure in front of a small crowd that gathered to watch the store’s iconic blue walls fall.
The IKEA corporation plans to build a two-story store at the site of its current store. Once the garage is gone later this year, construction will begin on a 406,000-square-foot store at that site. When it is completed, the company will tear down the current store.
The new store will offer what IKEA calls a “more current layout” and reflect the same unique architectural design for which IKEA stores are known worldwide. It will feature the same 10,000 exclusively designed items, 50 inspirational room-settings and three model home interiors.
It will also continue to have a supervised children’s play area, a larger restaurant for serving Swedish specialities. It will have 1,700 parking spaces.
The new store is expected to be finished in 2017. Until then, the current store will remain open.
During construction, IKEA will be providing additional parking nearby on weekends for customers and shuttling them to the store. Customers can find detailed information about parking directions, shuttle plans and construction updates at the website at IKEA-USA.com/Seattle and or on Twitter at @IKEA_Seattle.
IKEA is working to recycle, repurpose or salvage as much of the materials as possible, according to a press release from the copany.
IKEA opened the store in Renton in 1994, taking over a warehouse that had been built to hold aerospace electronics. It was the first U.S. franchise for the Swedish retailer, bringing the businesses unique brand of make-your-own furniture, knickknacks and Swedish cuisine to the area.
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